This invention relates to electrical igniters and to methods of electrical ignition.
The invention is particularly though not exclusively concerned with igniters of the kind for use in gas-turbine engines and with methods of igniting and maintaining combustion in gas-turbine engines.
Electrical igniters for gas-turbine engines and other applications are known (from, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,142,121) where two electrodes are separated from one another over a semiconductive surface within a cavity at the operative tip of the igniter.
Application of suitably high electrical energy to the electrodes causes discharge within this cavity which in turn produces a plasma that is ejected forwardly from the operative tip so as thereby to cause ignition of a mixture of vaporized fuel and air in the combustion chamber of the engine.